How to use domain names for email

Occasionally clients wonder how to receive email from their newly-registered domain name. For instance, say we've just built a website for a cat store called Feline Purrfect and registered the domain felinepurrfect.com. The website is ready to go! But what about email? Should the customer continue to use their personal Earthlink or Hotmail address? It might not look very professional having such a "personal" address on your website.

An easy solution is for you to continue using Earthlink or Hotmail as your mailbox (otherwise known as a POP account) and something like sales@felinepurrfect.com as your business address. This matches your web address so looks more professional, and is going to be easier for customers to identify with.

Let's say your friends and family know your email address as betty1234@hotmail.com. Well, there's no need to change that; you can continue to use that address for your friends and family. But for business customers you can use your new domain address sales@felinepurrfect.com on business cards, stationery, and on the new website.

But where do you collect your business email from exactly? The answer is simple: from the same place as your personal email – because email to sales@felinepurrfect.com will simply forward to your betty1234@hotmail.com mailbox. An email redirect is free, works instantly, and means you can receive business email in the same inbox as usual. Your friends and family can continue to use your old, personal Hotmail address, and new customers can start using the business address.

An added bonus is that if you ever decide to switch from Hotmail to another email account provider, all we do is change the redirect rule so that your business email forwards to your new account. Of course you'll have to send out change of address notices to your friends and family, but your business customers need never be bothered.

Finally, you don't have to stop at one email address for your business. You can use as many as you like, depending on your needs. You can have multiple addresses pointing at one mailbox like this:

sales@felinepurrfect.com redirects to betty1234@hotmail.com
info@felinepurrfect.com redirects to betty1234@hotmail.com
billing@felinepurrfect.com redirects to betty1234@hotmail.com

Or to different mailboxes like this:

sales@felinepurrfect.com redirects to betty1234@hotmail.com
info@felinepurrfect.com redirects to george5678@hotmail.com
billing@felinepurrfect.com redirects to jeffbloggs@earthlink.net

Or you can use a combination of both. The options are endless!

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